Rawls A Though Experiment: Imagination

Power, law, and the role of government are necessary and crucial in maintaining justice and promoting growth in a society. But what if the people in power fail to do their role and abuse the given authority for personal interest? Elie Wiesel’s 1956 Holocaust memoir Night documents a dark period in human history where the abuse of power by a few had an irreversible effects on millions of lives. The film ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez also displays the influence of power have on people and their ways of treating others. Although Night is a memoir based on true experience and ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ is a film based on a simulated research experiment, both work expose the truth of unbalanced and misused power within a society and its enormous physical and psychological impacts on individuals of different social status.

In “Precedents: The Destruction of the European Jews” by Raul Hilberg, he writes about the three policies that make up the devastating history of the holocaust. According to Helberg, these policies are “conversion, exploitation, and annihilation” (256). Conversion being Christians telling the Jews, “You have no right to live among us as Jews” (Helberg 257). Expulsion then becoming Christian saying, “You have no right to live among us” (Helberg 257). Then, the annihilation policy, which were the Christians saying, “You have no right to live” (Helberg 257). Hilberg writes that this was the administrative process that led to the murder of millions of Jews. According to Hilberg, the annihilation of the Jewish people was a systematic process.

John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice holds that a rational, mutually disinterested individual in the Original Position and given the task of establishing societal rules to maximise their own happiness throughout life, is liable to choose as their principles of justice a) guaranteed fundamental liberties and b) the nullification of social and economic disparities by universal equality of opportunities, which are to be of greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society , . Rawls’ system of societal creation has both strengths and weaknesses, but is ultimately sound.

Rawls strive to determine how we can make a society as just as possible. Rawls derives two principles; liberty principle and the difference principle. He also gives a theoretical device that he calls “the original position” and “the veil of ignorance” this device is meant to help us in the way that we picture our self behind a veil. We do not know the basic things about ourselves like our sex, age, financial status etc. This device is to help us be totally neutral in the sense that we do not know our status in society. After putting our self in a status quo if you will, we can now decide on what us just for the whole society. Rawls derives then the difference principle. To put this is Rawls own words, the difference principle is: “Then the difference principle is a strongly egalitarian conception in the sense that unless there is a distribution that makes both persons better off an equal distribution is to be preferred

John Rawls was dissatisfied with the traditional philosophical approach to justifying social and political actions therefore he attempted to provide a reasonable theory of social justice through a contract theory approach. In his work, A Theory of Justice, Rawls bases almost the entirety of his piece on the question, what kind of organization of society would rational persons choose if they were in an initial position of independence and equality and setting up a system of cooperation (A Theory of Justice-enotes)? From this seemingly simple question, Rawls goes into further detail describing what he believes society would and should do when setting up a fair and just organizational structure. Throughout his

John Rawls states that the principle of fairness is important as it applies to individuals the principle of fairness are a link between the two principles of social or political justice and individual obligations to comply with specific social practices (Pogge, 2007). By expanding the scope of what one considers to be an ‘end’ to include both aspects of nature as well as future generations, one can transform the implications of Rawls’ theory (Pogge, 2007). Rawls advances his theory of justice through what is called the Original Position which is a hypothetical situation in which all individuals are granted perfect equality and are asked to choose a principle of justice behind a veil of ignorance, which eliminates their biases (Pogge, 2007). The hypothetical persons in the Original Position, ignorant of who and what they will be in society and perfectly equal to one another, are able to truly come to a consensus as to what a just society would be (Pogge, 2007). Justice

Rawls theory of justice is a modern alternative to utilitarianism. He believes that justice must be given on the ground of fairness and moral equality of persons. (Shaw, 2016, p.120). His theory comes under social-contract practice. People in the original position choose the basic principles of their society. They should imagine their selves behind the veil of ignorance, means have no information about themselves. He thinks any principle decided under these conditions is considered the principle of justice. (Shaw, 2016,

Rawls believes that in a situation where a society is established of people who are self-interested, rational, and equal, the rules of justice are established by what is mutually acceptable and agreed upon by all the people. This scenario of negotiating the laws of that society that will be commonly agreed upon and beneficial to

In my understanding John Rawls bases his theory on the veil of ignorance. It’s an imaginative situation that puts all rational people together and lets them make decisions on the justice structure of society without being effected by power or any other influences coming from other

Rawls assumes that these hypothetical people would be conservative risk takers and in a situation of uncertainty would opt for the least disadvantageous outcome in any choice presented to them and they would choose those principles that would maximize the position of the worst off, for just in case they should be the worst off. The two principles of justice that such people choose are:- 1. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a similar liberty to others. 2. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantages b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality and opportunity.

Rawls holds that an individual cannot always agree on a contract before entering a society, some are simply born in them and would then have no say over their obligated fate. Instead of Locke’s contract theory, Rawls suggests the idea of the veil of ignorance which ensures that justice will prevail. The contract, suggested by Rawls, is created in a hypothetical situation where individuals gather together in representation of all who have and will live. These individuals have not recollection of divisions such as status, class, resources, abilities, goals, or even their own psychology. This memory swipe or veil of ignorance ensures the exclusion of bias and the pursuit of personal gain. In the final agreement, all have the same views and opinions because everything that separates one individual from another has been washed away fro the sake of the common good for all

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls presents his argument for justice and inequality. Rawls theorizes that in the original position, a hypothetical state where people reason without bias, they would agree to live in a society based on two principles of justice (Rawls 1971, 4). These two principles of justice are named the first and second principles. The first is the equal rights and liberties principle. The second is a combination of the difference principle and the fair equality of opportunity principle, or FEOP (Rawls 1971, 53). Rawls argues that inequality will always be inevitable in any society (Rawls 1971, 7). For example, there will always be a varied distribution of social and economic advantages. Some people will be wealthier than

Rawls claims that if people did not know their place in society they would follow through with his theory and eradicate all so called injustices that lead to an uneven distribution of wealth. Human beings will always pick the option, which allows them to have to largest possible gains, not one where everyone is on an even playing field. Beings would not place themselves in the lowest of the low; they wouldn’t assume themselves to be “those in need”. Competition seems to be completely ignored by Rawls, we are driven by

The general concept of Rawls “original position” is that all social “Primary Good” should be distributed equally to individuals in a society, unless an unequal distribution favors those less fortunate. Rawls call “the situation of ignorance about your own place in society the “original position (242).” Rawls’ theory is in direct response to John Lock’s principles on social contract which states that people in a free society need to set rules on how to live with one another in peace. Rawls’ principles were designed to guards against injustices, which was inflicted upon society, with the help of John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism principle that individuals should act so as to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number. Mills

John Rawls was an America philosopher whose idea was to develop an experiment for individuals to seek a fair notion of justice. Rawls experiment was a hypothetical one that engaged the individual to look at society and fairness from another perceptive. Individuals were to use their imagination and pretend that they were born into different lives, for example, if their mother was a single parent that worked two jobs just to put food on the table vs. the lavish life style one lives today. Society isn’t just, but if the individuals didn’t know their position or their background it could eliminate discrimination and give rise for equal opportunity for all. Rawls believed in the notion of the social contract theory, if everyone was in agreement they could form a sustainable society. Rawls proposed the government could possibly work for everyone, under these pretenses. Rawls had two key principles which focused on